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Show iIowiik leaves SiBijifli tagniirmv by Jack Cuter United w Tf ELL, won't have to get up at 4:30 in the morning five days a week. I That is Hugh Downs' not unexpected first response to questioning about his reaction to leaving the National Broadcasting Companys Today program (seen locally at 7 a.m., KUTV) Monday, after nine years as its host. Not the only reason, of course. At 50, Downs is hale and planning new projects after more than 30 years of pressurized radio and television duty. 1921) and relatives all over the midwest? Ive never felt at home in this city despite the many years Ive been Downs here, explained, and somehow, Ive lost my roots in the midwest. We had been thinking for a long time about where we might want to settle down. Then, when I was in Phoenix giving a lecture a few years ago, we got the idea that that part of the be the country might place. The air and climate Press International appealed to us. We looked around and found the Cave Creel, area satisfactory. More than satisfactory, as it has turned out, for just three miles from the Downs domicile is the site of the new Southwest Film Studio. There, Downs is moving the offices of his Raylin Productions firm, complete with his NBC secretary for years, Jean Ferrari, with the idea of producing various programs in the documentary vein. BESIDES the area of communications, in which Doums is, understandably, something of an expert, he is deeply involved in the environmental - ecological field and sees himself as proproducing prime-tim- e grams of such nature for television. I do not consider myself an expert in any phase of the environmental field, Downs said, but because of the Today program and my own interest I have absorbed much fiom many such exerts. I feel that this has given me an overall grasp of the problems that some of the experts do not have because they deal with only one element of it and do not get the complete picture. In the past year, Downs also has become deeply interested in dealing with the idea that electric waves from the brain can be harnessed so as to cause things to hap- - Oddly enough, he commented, Dave Garroway, the original host of the program, also put in nine years. that Im always walking away from something while it is a success, which is the best way to go. There were the five years with Jack Paar on what is now the Tonight show, and 10 years with the daytime game series, which I Concentration, started and which is still doing well without me. It seems while doing Today. As a matter of fact, I hope that 20 of those ideas will sort of evaporate because there will be only so many things I can handle even when Im free of the program. Downs departure fiom is no surprise. He Today let it be known months ago that he would lease at the end of the present contract and say goodbye to New York City. Saying hello to what? To Cave Creek, Ariz., a dot on the map, if During my time with it, also was working either with Paar or Today. I have two aoies there, and we built a soil of house, Spanish-typDowns said. It has been our legal residence for two and a half years. We Gcnc Kelly, without newspaper suit, hosts The Funny Side, comedy series on KUTV. e Ie But why Arizona for a Ohioan Akron, native started in broada radio announcas casting er in Lima, Ohio, when lie w as 19. After World War II service, he joined NBCs central division in Chicago as an announcer. He was brought to New York by the network in 1954, and among his earlier assignments were announcing duties on the Home and C a e sars Hour programs. Then came the laar show, which he left for "Today. The Downs it is that, between Phoenix and Yuma. apartment in Manhattan, which we just closed up Iasi week. a terribly exciting Downs said. We went into it on one of the Today programs, and I find it to be one of the most interesting of all the many interesting subjects weve covered during my years on the show. There is a clinic being built in the Cave Creek area that will do some experimenting DOWNS passed the nine-yea- r mark with Today" on Sept. 22. THERE aie about 30 things I would like to be doing. It has been impossible to do much about them DURING that lime, we the plural includes wife, Ruth kept a small Its field, with But how would T be after another extended tour of duty with Today? lie asked. Its just as well that I dont stay around to find out after my timrent contract ends. During that time, been commuting on an average of about every two weeks, flying out of here on a Thursday night or Friday afternoon to Phoenix and getting back here on a Sunday night to be ready for the program the following morning. pen that normally require some sort of muscular effort. d gib doom T HE FUNNY Side, a new comedy series which made' its uctuoik debut in September with the multitalented Gene Kelly as host, will turn its attention to newspapers Tuesday at 9 p.m. on KUTV. and his company of will be using the print medi players Kelly sds dv spoil um as background for a routine especially choreographed for the program. Newspaper Medley will feature the logotypes (signatures) of the worlds greatest newspapers. NATURALLY, Intermountain Region viewers will expect to see The Salt Like Tiilmne prominently displayed . . . and so (hey shall as the accompanying scene from the comedy hour attests. is seen The Funny Side through the eyes and fell through the lives of an assortment of five different couples of different ages, ethnic backgrounds, economic levvocational els and My last appearance on lie program will be on Monday, the 11th, Downs said. For some odd reason, that just happens to be ihe date on which my con- Salt Lake I 10, 1371 tract ends. Ill probably do an and Frank McGee, succeeds me, will probably do the other hour." hour, who m |
